Curator, web design/editor: Craig Harkema

Visiting Researcher (January-May, 2008): Dr. Pavel Krotov

We gratefully acknowledge the generous financial support of Dr. Sergei Sorokin.

A special thanks to Doug Macdonald and Alicia Hanwell for IT support.

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The Pitirim A.  Sorokin Collection is housed in the Special Collections Department at the University of Saskatchewan:

Major Fields of Sorokin's Philosophy of History

(1) The idea of cultural integration;
(2) The theory of social and cultural change;
(3) The identification of three cultural supersystems or ways of life through which, or around which, cultures are integrated;
(4) The idea of the alteration of these three ways of life with each other with the passage of time and the explana¬tion of this process; and,
(5) Sorokin's conception of the relations between types of culture and types of personality.

Integralist Method 

As a general rule, the contents of the unintegrated and yet-unfilled mind of a child are largely determined by the contents of the mental life of persons and groups among whom the child is born and reared, and with whom he interacts. To a large extent this rule happens to be correct in my case. The character of the mental life of my early sociocultural milieu shaped most of the con­tents of my early mentality.

Writings on Social Change  

An outstanding trait or characteristic of importance in Sorokin's work is its concentration on social change after his arrival in America. He devoted most of his time to social change or "dynamics" as he calls it. He sought to find out what social change meant, why it has occurred, what it did to the person and the societies, and what were the eventual destinations of persons and societies in the new forms.

Welcome to the Pitirim A. Sorokin Collection at the University of Saskatchewan Special Collections.    

The following files from section IV. Clippings about Sorokin and His Theories have been digitized and are available (additions will be added over time):

IV. A. 8. The Russian Revolution and Russia Today and Her Future.

The following archival records have been digitized and are available online: 

1905-1912